Heat climbed up my neck. Part of me wanted to cross the yard and make Rachel take back every word, but I was still trying to understand how Michael had allowed this to happen.
Then Tom laughed quietly behind me.
Rachel’s smile disappeared.
Michael went pale.
They both turned toward Tom as though they’d suddenly realized he knew something they hadn’t expected him to know.
Tom stepped beside me. His face was calm, but his eyes looked different from the night before.
“Actually, I have a special gift for you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment.”
Nobody answered. Mom glanced between Tom and Rachel while Michael swallowed hard.
Tom walked to the chair where he’d left his jacket, removed a small envelope, and pulled out several glossy photographs.
He handed them to Rachel and Michael.
“These were taken at the estate,” he said.
Michael examined them.
One showed Rachel standing beside him on a stone terrace. Another showed her laughing while he leaned close to say something. In another, they sat shoulder to shoulder on a bench with a wide lawn stretching behind them.
Mom reached toward the first photograph, then stopped.
Nobody spoke.
Rachel lowered her gaze while Michael turned the pictures over as though their blank backs might give him an explanation.
“I took Rachel there because I was looking for a gift for Sadie,” he said. “I thought she might like the place. A family home.”
He looked at me expectantly.
His explanation sounded polished enough to have been prepared, but I didn’t challenge him.
Not there.
Not in front of our parents and half the family.
I placed a hand on Michael’s arm.
“I trust my husband. Those pictures don’t prove anything, and the kiss was a prank.”
His shoulders relaxed.
Rachel looked up, relief replacing the embarrassment on her face.
Then I turned toward Tom. “If you have questions about your relationship with Rachel, maybe we should take it outside.”
I deliberately emphasized the final words.
Tom met my eyes. For a moment, I wasn’t sure he’d understood.
Then something shifted in his expression, and he nodded.
“Yeah, talk some sense into him!” Michael called after us.
Tom and I headed toward the back door. Behind us, the family’s silence dissolved into whispers.
I kept my expression calm until we were away from everyone, though my thoughts were racing.
Had Tom understood why I’d defended Michael, or had I only made things more difficult?
Tom didn’t wait for the door to close.
“Have you lost your mind?” he hissed. “You stood there and defended him.”
“I know what I said.”
“Michael and Rachel have been talking about eloping,” he said. “They want to start a new life together at that estate.”
I stared at him. “How do you know?”
Tom lowered his voice. “I followed them last week. Rachel told me she was visiting a friend. They spent nearly an hour on the terrace, laughing and touching where anyone might see them.”
I covered my mouth to hold back a gasp.
Tom continued. “I took those pictures from my car. When I walked closer, the doors were open. I heard them talking about leaving together, but by the time I raised my phone, they’d gone back inside.”
The photographs proved they’d been together at the estate, but not what they were planning.
If Rachel and Michael denied everything, a few pictures of them sitting together might not be enough to protect Tom or me in a divorce.
And now they knew Tom had seen the estate.
They wouldn’t return there.
“You think I’m calm?” I asked. “I’m furious. But if we confront them with this and nothing more, they’ll deny it, hide everything, and we’ll have nothing useful.”
Tom rubbed a hand over his face. “So you want to pretend you believe him?”
“For now. We need proof they can’t laugh off as a misunderstanding.”
He studied me for a moment.
Then he lowered his voice. “Rachel goes somewhere else every Friday. I’ve seen her leave, and she won’t tell me where she’s going.”
A possibility immediately occurred to me.
“Michael says he meets the boys at a bar every Friday.”
Tom’s expression tightened. “You think they’re meeting?”
“I think we should find out.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Inside, someone laughed and a chair scraped against the floor. The party continued as though nothing had happened.
“Tomorrow,” Tom said. “We follow them. We keep our distance, and we record what we see.”
I nodded. My hands were trembling, so I clasped them together.
“Don’t let them see you,” I said. “If they suspect we’re watching, we lose our chance.”
Tom agreed.
We returned separately, both hiding the same secret behind ordinary smiles.
Tomorrow would tell me whether Michael had betrayed me once—or whether my marriage had ended long before I’d realized it.